Truth about Truman School (12 page)

We had some more updating to do on our site. I knew I wouldn't be able to do it at my house because my dad was working from home that day. But Hayley and Brianna were hanging out in the media center after school. Again. So I asked Amr if I could go to his house and work on his computer while he and his mom prayed. He said I could, so I went up to his room by myself.

His computer was on. In fact, our website was already up. We had quite a few new things on the site: an article on the Lego robotics club (which was good!), three new bad teacher stories, a “letter to the editor” that suggested the popular girls were all a bunch of lezzies (sigh), a stupid-looking comic of two girls kissing (double sigh), and more than a hundred comments on milkandhoney's “announcement” about Lilly (triple sigh). I needed to move a few things around to make the site look better. But I was so depressed about the kind of stuff that got people talking on this site that I just sat there and stared at Amr's computer screen for a while.

I really didn't mean to snoop, but while I was staring at the screen, I noticed a tab for this other window on Amr's computer. The tab said, “A Little Fable.”

Amr
wrote a fable? Was he planning on putting it on the site? Amr's a computer guy. He deals in facts and logic. If you want a step-by-step how-to-do-something sort of article, Amr's the guy to write it. But creative writing (like fables!)? That's not Amr.

I wanted to see what kind of fable he'd written. I didn't think he'd mind … until I actually saw the fable.

A Little Fable

By milkandhoney

Once upon a time there was a dog named Lilly. She wasn't pretty, she wasn't funny, and she didn't have any special talents. In fact, there were no good qualities about her whatsoever. But for some reason all the popular dogs let her hang around with them. (Popular dogs don't need a reason … they just like something because it's “popular.”)

But one day, one of the popular dogs (let's call her Athena because Athena is the Goddess of Wisdom) said, “Why do we even hang around with Lilly? She's just bringing us down.”

The other popular dogs thought about it and they realized Athena was right. So from that day forward, NOBODY liked Lilly Clarke anymore.

I could hardly believe my eyes.
Amr
was milkandhoney???

Someone was setting me up. Someone was trying to turn the whole school against me. The question was who?

It had to be Zebby and Amr. No one else hated me as much as they did.

Zebby swore it wasn't them. But if it wasn't her and Amr, who else could it be? Who else would want to turn the whole school against me? Who else would even dare take on someone in my group?

Could it be someone who was already
in
my group? Someone who wanted me gone from the group, but they couldn't just kick me out because I was close to Hayley. Someone like … Brianna?

Brianna and I have never really liked each other much. We just sort of put up with each other because of Hayley. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind if
she
got bumped from our group. Was it possible she felt the same way about me?

If she got to talking with someone who went to Hoover, she could have found out I used to be sort of fat in elementary school. She could have gotten a copy of my old school picture from anyone who had a memory book.

I wouldn't have thought she was smart enough to scan a picture in and upload it to a website, or set up an anonymous email address or a blog that was supposedly my diary. But everyone knew her stepbrother was some kind of genius. He could have helped her.

All of a sudden, I heard a knocking sound coming from my computer. One of my friends was logging on to instant messaging. I switched windows to see who it was. It was Gymnasticsqueen. Hayley.

I swallowed hard. I wondered what would happen if I tried messaging her? She'd probably ignore me, like she did at school. But at least with instant messaging, you can still talk to someone, even if they're not talking to you, and maybe they'll at least read what you wrote?

I double-clicked on her name and typed, “hi.”
What else did I want to say to her?

A few seconds later Gymnasticsqueen wrote back. “hi.”

Oh! She was speaking to me?

“i thought u were mad at me,” I typed. “r u mad?” I didn't even wait for an answer, I just kept on typing. “i didn't write any of that stuff on that website. that's not my diary!!! please, hayley, you've got to believe me!”

“i'm not mad,” Hayley typed back.

I waited for her to say more. Like whether she believed me or not, or whether or not we were still friends. But she didn't.

“someone (milkandhoney!) is trying to turn everyone against me,” I typed. “they r saying stuff about me that isn't true. i'm NOT gay!”

“then why would someone say that you are?”

She was asking
me?
“i told you. someone's trying to turn everyone against me.”

“who would do that?”

“i don't know. i've wondered if it's … brianna.” It would be interesting to see what Hayley said about that.

“brianna? what makes u think it's brianna?”

Well … “i don't think she likes me very much. i think she thinks i stole you from her or something, and i think she'd do anything to turn you against me.”

I waited and waited, but Hayley didn't say anything more.

“hello???” I typed. “hayley? r u still there?”

“hayley's here,” someone typed a couple seconds later. “and I'm here with her. hello, lilly. it's me … BRIANNA!”

O.M.G.!

My mom had just baked a fresh batch of pita chips with olive oil and herbs, so when I finished praying, I grabbed a bowl of chips, then headed up to my room. I could tell something was wrong the minute I walked in. Zebby was all slouched in my chair with her arms crossed, the blue of her hair hanging around her face.

“What?” I asked, handing her the bowl of chips.

She didn't take it, so I set the bowl down on my desk and asked again, “What?” Louder this time.

“You're milkandhoney,” she said. It wasn't a question; it was a statement.

At first I didn't know what she was talking about. Milk and honey? Then I saw what she had up on my computer.

“Oh, that,” I said. “I didn't write that.”

Zebby cocked her head at me.

“I didn't! I saw it on our site this morning and … I took it down.”

“Right,” Zebby said with a snort. “So tell me, Amr, what made you decide to take it down?”

She had to ask? “Well, because it isn't very nice,” I said.

“There's other stuff on our site that
isn't very nice
, too,” Zebby said, rising to her feet. “Why would you take this down and not anything else?”

“I, uh—” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, not knowing what to say. She had a point. “How could you think
I'm
milkandhoney?” I cried.

Zebby started listing things off on her fingers. “Well, this fable, to start with. I was on the site this morning, too, Amr. This wasn't up there. Second, you still have your fifth-grade memory book, so you could've scanned that picture of Lilly and put it up on our website. Third, nobody knows more about computers than you do. You could set things up so no one, not even me, could trace the name milkandhoney back to you. But you made one mistake, Amr. Which brings me to number four: you used the same background to create Lilly's Lesbian Diary as you used on your mom's garden club's website!”

Zebby, my best and oldest friend, was calling me a liar. And a bully.

I cleared my throat. “Well, that's interesting,” I said calmly. “Because lately I've been wondering if
you
were milkandhoney.”

“Me?” She stepped back.

“Sure. I know for a fact you still have your fifth-grade memory book, too. You know as much about scanning and uploading as I do. You're pretty artistic; you could've drawn all that stuff all over her picture. You know where I got that template for my mom's garden club's website, so you could've used it to create Lilly's Lesbian Diary, too. And nobody has a bigger grudge against Lilly Clarke than you do.”

Zebby opened her mouth, but then closed it again before any more words came out. She pushed past me, stormed down the hall, down the stairs, and out my front door, which she slammed closed behind her.

“I can't believe she said that about you. Can you?” Hayley asked after we closed her instant messaging program.

I plopped down on Hayley's bed and put my feet up against her headboard. “Yes,” I said. “I totally believe it. Lilly's always talking about people behind their backs. She says stuff about you when you're not around, too, you know.”

“She does?” Hayley looked surprised.

“Of course she does!”

“What does she say?”

Well, Lilly usually didn't say much about Hayley
to me
, but that was because Lilly and I didn't usually spend much time alone together. I was pretty sure Lilly said things about Hayley to other people, though. I mean, everybody talks about people behind their backs.

“It's okay, Brianna,” Hayley said, sitting down next to me. “I know you don't want to hurt my feelings, but you can tell me. I want to know what she said.”

I had to tell her something, so I said, “Well … she thinks you're bossy.” Everyone thinks Hayley's bossy. “And that you're … well, kind of full of yourself.”

Hayley stiffened. “Anything else?”

“I don't know. Not really.”

She got up and wandered over to her dresser. I watched as she picked up tubes of lipstick, then set them back down again.

“I don't know what to think about Lilly anymore, Brianna,” Hayley said finally. “She's not the person I thought she was.”

“Me either,” I said.

“What do you think we should do about it?”

She was asking
me?
I shrugged. “What do
you
think we should do about it?”

“Well, obviously we can't keep hanging around with her. I think we're going to have to cut her loose.”

It was about time.